


White Noise

by celestialskiff



Category: Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:30:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It was always too bright in his dreams.</i> Written in 2008 following a prompt on the Kink Meme requesting a fic where Vince is raped by someone other than Howard, and then comforted by Howard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Noise

It was always too bright in his dreams. There was always a wall of light against his eyes. He was blinded by it. There was no comforting blackness beneath his eyelids; the light seeped between his lashes and coated the inside of his skull. It was as consuming as pain.

*

“You can always talk to me,” Howard had said, when he sat still in the morning light, unable to focus his vision. His thighs felt damp with blood even though he had cleaned them; he had cleaned them so many times.

Vince looked up at him and Howard placed an uncertain hand on his forehead. “It’s ok, Vince,” he said.

Howard slept beside him now, a comforting, snoring weight. Vince was still, his eyes so dry they burned. His skin felt clammy. He thought he could feel someone else’s hands tugging on his spine, someone’s fingers in his arse.

He looked at Howard’s profile in the dark room, and he couldn’t say a word.

*

It had been cold that night, and Vince had been happy. He had often been happy then, but that day he had been especially happy. There was a gig on that night, and he was singing in it. He was wearing a new skin-tight suit and the soft velvet cuffs tickled his hands. He still remembered that feeling: the gentle tickle of soft cloth on his skin, on his palms. Later, he’d clung on to that material with all his strength, as if clinging to something, anything, would offer him some kind of sanctuary.

*

He could make jokes about that kind of thing then. Hold a pair of hair straightners and laugh about narrowly avoiding a bumming.

It felt like pieces of him had been stolen now; pieces that he didn’t know had been taken at the time. His body didn’t belong to him anymore, but he couldn’t laugh without it sounding mocking and cruel to his own ears.

*

His heart had begun to race almost at once. As if it knew before he did what was to come. They were in an alley. He’d turned down it to get to the club faster, because there were things he needed to do, and he wanted to be inside, where it was warm and smelt like alcohol and the music throbbed.

The hands were cold on his skin. He’d wanted to laugh it off at once. He was Vince, after all, and he didn’t believe this could be happening to him.

The man was bigger than him, a lot bigger. Vince tried to say something, but the words were trapped somehow. A noise escaped, like a grunt of laughter or a moan. A hand encircled his wrist, ran down his bare chest. The hands were cold, and heavy.

“I think you’ve--” Vince began, but there was nowhere for the sentence to go. He knew what was happening, instinctively, hopelessly, and he squirmed, trying to fight the hands on his skin.

“Slut,” the man said.

*

He used to chew on his thumb when he was nervous, now he sucked on it, some childish habit strangely returned. Howard didn’t ask him to help in the shop anymore. No one demanded much from him and partly he was grateful, because he wasn’t sure whether there was anything he could do.

His stomach swam at the sight of food, and his eyes burnt in the light, the sound of a gruff voice made him quiver. Sometimes he wished there was something that distracted him, some reason to keep on going, something other than sitting here and existing.

Howard would sit beside him then, when his eyes brimmed over, and he had never thought that Howard could be so good at holding him, at containing him in his arms. He did not know how to ask for this, but Howard would give it to him anyway, hold him like everything was going to be ok when he let go.

*

“Howard?” he whispered sometimes, at night. Sometimes he felt like he’d forgotten all the other words, that this one was all he needed. His body did not feel like his own anymore, and in the dark he wished he could be cast adrift from it, adrift from it all, his filthy skin and the hands that twisted inside him.

Howard would hear him, even above his deep, stuttering breaths. He would hear him and pull Vince onto his chest, so he was safe in warm arms, Howard’s heartbeat against his ear.

*

That first night he was alone in bed. He could not remember how he had got home; he could not remember much of what had happened after a cock had replaced fingers inside him. Blood stuck to his thighs and to the bed sheets, and he shivered, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t know how to unwrap his arms, which circled his knees, or raise his head from the cold duvet.

There was a strange moan in the room, and he didn’t know where it came from. He wished more than anything it would stop because it filled his head and his chest and it scared him.

“Vince!” someone shouted. “Vince!” As it came closer, he realised it was Howard’s voice and he stiffened, wishing he could hide this mess. A sharp hot pain coursed through him and his skin was sticky with blood. He still did not know how to move, how to escape from this.

The light was blinding. He had not realised he had been lying near-total darkness, but when the harsh light surrounded him, he could not see.

Howard’s voice changed immediately, but he didn’t register it. “Vince?” he said a third time.

*

It was Hallowe’en. “Vince should come out with us,” Naboo was saying. “You’re leaving him alone too much. He’s going mental.”

Vince did not quite listen. He was on the sofa in the sitting room, legs drawn up to his chest, looking at the blackness pressed against the windows. He wanted only to be in bed with Howard holding him. He thought he could hear raised voices, but he did his best to shut them out. He heard the door into the room opening, and slowly withdrew his thumb from his mouth. He wanted to turn his head around as well, and smile, but his body didn’t always listen to his mind any more.

“Vince.” It was Naboo. “You’re coming out with us, yeah? You’ll feel better. I’ve brought you a joint, something to loosen you up.”

“Vince.” This time is was Howard. Vince felt the hand on his spine loosening a little. “You don’t have to go out.”

“You don’t have to stay in, either, Vince. Come on. You never do anything anymore.”

Howard answered for him. “Do you think he wants to be like this, Naboo? He’ll go out when he’s ready.”

Naboo ignored him. He came over and stood in front of the couch. “Vince. Come on. Get up.”

His voice was much too loud. Vince closed his eyes and pretended he wasn’t there, that none of them were there.

“Don’t push him,” Howard said. He put his hand on Vince’s shoulder and one of Vince’s hands reached up involuntarily and covered it with his own.

Naboo slammed the door behind him. Howard sat down beside Vince, and Vince melted into his arms, hiding his face in the side of Howard’s neck.

*

Howard touched Vince’s arm. Vince could smell blood and semen on his own skin, and he flinched, ashamed. He wanted to hide, but he didn’t even know how to move. Howard knelt down so that his eyes were level with Vince’s. Vince blinked at him, trying to find words but hearing only the strange, guttural sound that filled his chest.

“What happened?” Howard asked, touching Vince’s cheek. Vince didn’t even know how to shake his head.

“It’s going to be ok, Vince,” Howard said, his voice softer than Vince had ever heard it. “It is.”

He put his hand on Vince’s back. “Come on. Let’s get you clean.”

Vince struggled, trying to move his aching limbs. His arms flopped and his thighs shook uncontrollably.

“It’s ok,” Howard said softly, and then gently slid his arms around him and picked him up.

*

The second night, his head had been full of raw cries and a white light pressed against his eyes and blinded him. His bed was cold and the clean sheets felt sticky with blood. He limped down the corridor and opened the door to Howard’s room. Howard was asleep, his breathing slow and even, and Vince stood, on shaking legs, watching him. Then Howard opened his eyes and lifted the corner of the duvet.

“Come here,” he said, and Vince folded himself into those arms.

*

The bathwater was red with blood, but it soothed his limbs. Howard sat on the edge of the bath, and gently rubbed at the dried flakes on Vince’s thighs with a facecloth.

“What happened?” Howard whispered, pulling the plug out because the water was too bloody now to be much good. There was a cut above Vince’s eyebrow, and his arms were bruised, too. Howard touched them gently, and Vince flinched.

“I should call the police,” Howard said.

Vince shook his head, eyes meeting Howard’s. Howard let go off the cloth, and lowered his head. “Oh, God, Vince,” he murmured.

*

Words formed one night as Vince curled up in Howard’s lap. They were watching telly, something full of loud laughter.

“Is it always going to be this way?” Vince asked. His voice was rough with lack of use.

Howard stroked his hair. “It’s only been six months, Vince,” he said. “It’s going to be ok.”

And Vince, with Howard’s arms around him, believed it


End file.
